


little red lioness

by brophigenia



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Good Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Medicinal Herbs, Menstruation, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 01, Slice of Life, according to the timeline idk, and her two dads and wine aunt are here to help, cirilla is going through some shit, cirilla is twelve in the show and she's thirteen here, mostly gen with background jaskier/geralt and yennefer/geralt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22236472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia
Summary: Cirilla’s thirteenth summer dawned in blood.(AKA, several months post-season one, Cirilla gets her first period. The Blunders Three try their best to deal with it, with mostly-okay results.)
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 16
Kudos: 538





	little red lioness

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so me and my Mom binge-watched the Witcher on Netflix in like, ten hours. I have work in the morning. I set out to write a Witcher AU Raven Cycle fic, and instead Cirilla ended up getting her period. It's a thing, it happened. I spent all eight episodes literally just wanting to snatch that child up and raise her as my own in a safe cottage in the woods, killing anyone who tried to harm her, eating shepherd's pie twice a week. 
> 
> Cut lyrics from Once Upon A Dream.

_ and i know it’s true—  _

_ that visions are seldom all they seem.  _

***

Cirilla’s thirteenth summer dawned in blood. Not monster blood, or Nilfgaardian blood, but her own. 

She’d heard of it, of course. Menses, courses, cycle,  _ moonblood.  _ That was the word that Jaskier used, when he found out why she was taking too-long in the bushes, staring down aghast and nauseous at the blood staining her trousers and smallclothes. Her grandmother had told her— had explained all of it. She knew what was happening. 

Still, she was crying, and she felt very alone, and Jaskier was calling it  _ moonblood  _ as if it were some magical thing and not  _ this,  _ fear and pain and grief. She just wanted him to go  _ away.  _ She didn’t want Jaskier, or Geralt, or  _ anyone.  _ She wanted her grandmother. She wanted her mother. 

Jaskier went to fetch Geralt, stammering his way through something that could’ve been a ballad and also could’ve been a quote from his crotchety old grandmother. Cirilla yanked her trousers up and curled into a ball on the other side of the tree she’d been squatting against for her morning piss, out of the wet spot but on top of some uncomfortable rocks. She rested her head on her knees and breathed through her mouth so she couldn’t smell  _ it, _ iron-tinged and foul. The mornings were still cool, and the wet fabric between her legs was cold. 

It was all  _ wrong.  _ She ought to be in her bed, properly cared for, with her grandmother proudly stroking her hair and the maids bringing her the special pain tea that all the older ladies at court drank during their courses. Her grandfather would bring her chocolates from across the sea and Mousesack would pat her head gruffly. It was such a nice fantasy, imagining a life that was gone forever; Cirilla bit her lips bloody to keep down the sobs. 

“Are you in pain?” Geralt asked from the other side of the tree, courteously  _ not  _ intruding on the mess of blood-soaked whimpering that Cirilla had devolved into. He was good like that. Geralt was her shadow and her protector and her other half; he was  _ hers,  _ for all that she was technically  _ his.  _ Geralt’s arms were large and full of inhuman strength, and yet Ciri never felt so safe as when she was enveloped within them. There was nothing to fear with him holding her, her fingers curled into the ends of his white locks, his scent high in her nose, sweat and horseflesh and leather. 

“No. Yes.” Ciri sniffled, cheeks burning. There should be no embarrassment between them, but she’d never felt so stupidly juvenile before. She should be stuffing rags in her trousers and moving along, onto the next adventure. The next beast to slay, the next crowd to serenade, the next coin to catch. She was no princess, anymore. She was only Ciri. It was useless to cry over burnt-down castles and dusty bones. 

Geralt only grunted, an acknowledgement that was softer than his usual noises. The sound of his retreat was louder than it ought to have been; he was telegraphing his movements, so she knew when it was safe to weep. 

Geralt was good like that. 

She passed hours curled up around her treacherous womanly parts, hours where the sun rose higher in the air and sweat began to gather at the back of her neck. She felt, objectively, disgusting— sweaty and bloody and tear-streaked, in filthy clothes. Like the urchin she’d played at being, when she was just a stupid little girl gaming knucklebones on the cobblestones. Spoiled and obscene and  _ stupid.  _

The air shimmered, a portal opening off to her right, bringing the scent of the ocean and just the faintest hint of sand in the air. 

Yennefer did not visit often, but when she did she arrived with impractical gifts for Ciri and sharp barbs for Jaskier and  _ time  _ for Geralt like it were Midwinter’s Night and she was tucking presents into everyone’s shoes. 

“Hello, little lioness.” Yennefer greeted her, quietly, as she stepped out of thin air dressed in one of her ridiculously lush gowns, all dripping gold chains and bluebird feathers. She looked like the sky. She looked tall and terrible and beautiful. She looked like she could tuck Ciri up beneath her wings and fly off, somewhere  _ better.  _

“Yen.” Ciri whispered back, throat aching like she’d been screaming instead of trying  _ not  _ to. She sounded fragile as a glass cup, not like the steel-cored thing she was trying to mold herself into, patterned after her grandmother and Geralt and even Yennefer. 

“May I?” It was unexpectedly soft, gentle permission sought by the mage that even Geralt feared. It did something to make Ciri feel less pathetic and small— she inclined her head slowly, unaware of how reminiscent to Calanthe she appeared with the motion, regal and full of gravitas. 

Yennefer sat beside her in the dirt, heedless of her fine garb. It was another thing that Ciri liked about Yennefer— how at ease she seemed  _ everywhere,  _ like she was equal to any occasion. 

The sorceress must have been able to smell the blood, the sweat— Ciri blushed, looked away. 

“It’s a gift and a curse.” Yen said finally, also looking away. In Ciri’s peripheral, she was all perfectly-carved silhouette and impossibly-long eyelashes. “Like so many things.” 

“It feels like a nightmare.” Ciri whispered, and meant  _ everything feels like a nightmare.  _ She loved Geralt, and Jaskier, and Roach— only, she’d give it all up in a  _ second  _ for just one night in her old life. One night with her grandmother. One night in Centra, as it had been. 

Yennefer’s hand found its way to Ciri’s hair, then, and with sharply-filed fingernails she combed through its tangles, comforting and alien all at once. “You’re awake. You’re alive. Your dreams and your nightmares are heavy, but they are  _ yours.  _ You are in charge of your own destiny. You have all the choices in the world.” For a moment, her fingers paused in their stroking. They resumed and Yennefer did not say anything else for a long time. 

It was the longest that they’d ever spent together— usually Yen only appeared in the evening and then spent the night with Geralt in the tent, while Ciri slept in a conjured tent all her own, Jaskier huffily drinking and humming just outside. Those nights were almost uncomfortably lavish, lounging in a four-poster featherbed with a lion-embroidered velvet dressing gown to wrap around her body. Yennefer’s magic turned sweet and indulgent for Cirilla: spells that were all fresh fruits and warm bedding and  _ comfort.  _

When they emerged from the trees at dusk, Ciri in a fresh pair of trousers with her face scrubbed of tears, Geralt and Jaskier were the picture of normalcy by the fire, nonchalantly eating roast rabbit. Ciri took her usual spot and ate all the portion they’d saved for her, licking the grease from her fingers and savoring the feeling of warm food in her belly. She remembered long weeks spent walking in the cold with her stomach cramping from hunger, her feet bleeding and her back so sore she could hardly stand to lay down at night to sleep. 

Yennefer and Jaskier traded snipes back and forth; Geralt went to sharpening his swords, a scraping symphony that made Ciri sleepy as if by reflex, a sound that belonged to the nights that came after long, exhausting days. She still hurt, dully, low down between her hipbones. It was still awkward to sit on the rags that she’d laid into the crotch of her trousers. She still felt wobbly as a newborn colt, unsure and homesick. 

“Ah,” Geralt said quietly, pausing in his task to hand her an unfamiliar leather pouch. “I collected these today— boil them in water, for your… pain.” He seemed to hedge the last words, choosing them carefully for her benefit. Geralt was not one to dance around a subject. She was glad for his tact, even as her chest went tight with his offering. 

Jaskier interrupted their moment, brash and sweet as he asked her what she’d like him to sing for their evening’s entertainment. Yennefer mumbled something like  _ can we not play the Quiet Game?  _ but did not complain when Ciri started to name her choices. 

Jaskier sang all of her favorite songs— the oldest songs, nursery lullabies and love stories. In between, he told ribald jokes to make her laugh and stories about court dramatics, about the night her parents were wed, about Geralt’s most gallant slayings. He reminded her most of her grandfather, somehow— gentle around the eyes. 

She fell asleep before the fire, curled like a pup, like the lion cub her grandmother had always compared her to. The herb-tea made her feel heavy, warm; warm all the way to her toes. Like her pain and her fear were both faraway. 

Geralt carried her to the tent, tucking her gently into her bedroll as a parent might a toddler, like she weighed less than a sack of flour. He pressed a kiss into her hair so fleeting she could’ve almost imagined it. 

Distantly, Ciri wondered where Geralt and Yennefer would slip off to, whether Jaskier would be terribly hungover the next morning from his inevitable drunken sulking, if her rags would stay in place as she slept. 

Mostly, though, she was only grateful for the dark safety of the tent and the familiar scent of her bedroll, miles away from a featherbed but comforting, nonetheless. 

There would be many more days and weeks and years to worry, to ache, yet. Tonight, Ciri would sleep, comfortably nestled on the cusp of womanhood, protected and loved. 

***

_ you’d love me at once,  _

_ the way you did once upon a dream.  _

**Author's Note:**

> follow me @ brophigenia.tumblr.com  
> follow me on twitter @ twitter.com/brophigenia  
> toss a coin to your bitcher at ko-fi.com/brophigenia


End file.
